The Curse

Related poetry:

1. Curse of the Cat Woman It sometimes happens That the woman you meet and fall in love with Is of that strange Transylvanian people With an affinity for cats. You take her to a restuarant, say, or a show, On an ordinary date, being attracted By the glitter in her slitty eyes and her catlike walk, And afterwards of course […]...
2. Butterfly Butterfly, the wind blows sea-ward, strong beyond the garden-wall! Butterfly, why do you settle on my shoe, and sip the dirt on my shoe, Lifting your veined wings, lifting them? big white butterfly! Already it is October, and the wind blows strong to the sea From the hills where snow must have fallen, the wind […]...
3. The Curse Upon Edward WEAVE the warp, and weave the woof, The winding-sheet of Edward’s race. Give ample room, and verge enough The characters of hell to trace. Mark the year, and mark the night, When Severn shall re-echo with affright The shrieks of death, thro’ Berkley’s roofs that ring, Shrieks of an agonizing King! She-wolf of France, with […]...
4. Tz'u No. 13 To the tune of “Song of Peace” Year by year, in the snow, I have often gathered plum flowers, Intoxicated with their beauty. Fondling them impudently I got my robe wet with their lucid tears. This year I have drifted to the corner Of the sea and the edge Of the horizon, My temples have […]...
5. The Song of a Man Who has Come Through Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me! A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time. If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me! If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift! If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself […]...
6. To A Poor Old Woman munching a plum on The street a paper bag Of them in her hand They taste good to her They taste good To her. They taste Good to her You can see it by The way she gives herself To the one half Sucked out in her hand Comforted A solace of ripe plums Seeming […]...
7. Birdcage Walk When the wind blows her veil And uncovers her laughter I cease, I turn pale. When the wind blows her veil From the woes I bewail Of love and hereafter: When the wind blows her veil I cease, I turn pale....
8. All Is Well Whate’er you dream, with doubt possessed, Keep, keep it snug within your breast, And lay you down and take your rest; And when you wake, to work again, The wind it blows, the vessel goes, And where and whither, no one knows. ‘Twill all be well: no need of care; Though how it will, and […]...
9. Drying Their Wings What the Carpenter Said THE moon’s a cottage with a door. Some folks can see it plain. Look, you may catch a glint of light, A sparkle through the pane, Showing the place is brighter still Within, though bright without. There, at a cosy open fire Strange babes are grouped about. The children of the […]...
10. The Curse Cedars and the westward sun. The darkening sky. A man alone Watches beside the fallen wall The evening multitudes of sin Crowd in upon us all. For when the light fails they begin Nocturnal sabotage among The outcast and the loose of tongue, The lax in walk, the murderers: Our twilight universal curse. Children are […]...
11. A Curse Against Elegies Oh, love, why do we argue like this? I am tired of all your pious talk. Also, I am tired of all the dead. They refuse to listen, So leave them alone. Take your foot out of the graveyard, They are busy being dead. Everyone was always to blame: The last empty fifth of booze, […]...
12. Mummy's Curse Befriending an eccentric young woman The sole resident of a secluded Victorian mansion. She takes long walks in the evening rain, And so do I, with my hair full of dead leaves. In her former life, she was an opera singer. She remembers the rich Neapolitan pastries, Points to a bit of fresh whipped cream […]...
13. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
14. A Curse for Kings A curse upon each king who leads his state, No matter what his plea, to this foul game, And may it end his wicked dynasty, And may he die in exile and black shame. If there is vengeance in the Heaven of Heavens, What punishment could Heaven devise for these Who fill the rivers of […]...
15. The Curse of Kehama I charm thy life, From the weapons of strife, From stone and from wood, From fire and from flood, From the serpent’s tooth, And the beast of blood. From sickness I charm thee, And time shall not harm thee; But earth, which is mine, Its fruits shall deny thee; And water shall hear me, And […]...
16. Adam's Curse We sat together at one summer’s end, That beautiful mild woman, your close friend, And you and I, and talked of poetry. I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. Better go down upon your marrow-bones And scrub […]...
17. The Curse Of Cromwell You ask what – I have found, and far and wide I go: Nothing but Cromwell’s house and Cromwell’s murderous crew, The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay, And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen, where are they? And there is an old beggar wandering in his pride – […]...
18. The Travellers' Curse after Misdirection (from the Welsh) May they stumble, stage by stage On an endless Pilgrimage Dawn and dusk, mile after mile At each and every step a stile At each and every step withal May they catch their feet and fall At each and every fall they take May a bone within them break And may the […]...
19. Curse of a Rich Polish Peasant on His Sister Who Ran Away With a Wild Man FELIKSOWA has gone again from our house and this time for good, I hope. She and her husband took with them the cow father gave them, and they sold it. She went like a swine, because she called neither on me, her brother, nor on her father, before leaving for those forests. That is where […]...
20. Petals Life is a stream On which we strew Petal by petal the flower of our heart; The end lost in dream, They float past our view, We only watch their glad, early start. Freighted with hope, Crimsoned with joy, We scatter the leaves of our opening rose; Their widening scope, Their distant employ, We never […]...
21. The Turning Unknown faces in the street And winter coming on. I Stand in the last moments of The city, no more a child, Only a man, one who has Looked upon his own nakedness Without shame, and in defeat Has seen nothing to bless. Touched once, like a plum, I turned Rotten in the meat, or […]...
22. Wayward Wind My patient, Paul, wrote in a poem That he belongs to the wayward wind, A restless breed, A strange and hardy class. I’ve been with him for two years And now he is dying. “Are you in pain, Paul?” I ask. “I AM pain,” he said. But he is refusing medication Although his cancer has […]...
23. The Wedding of the Rose and the Lotos The wide Pacific waters And the Atlantic meet. With cries of joy they mingle, In tides of love they greet. Above the drowned ages A wind of wooing blows: – The red rose woos the lotos, The lotos woos the rose. . . The lotos conquered Egypt. The rose was loved in Rome. Great India […]...
24. The Sewing-Girl The humble garret where I dwell Is in that Quarter called the Latin; It isn’t spacious truth to tell, There’s hardly room to swing a cat in. But what of that! It’s there I fight For food and fame, my Muse inviting, And all the day and half the night You’ll find me writing, writing, […]...
25. Holidays The holiest of all holidays are those Kept by ourselves in silence and apart; The secret anniversaries of the heart, When the full river of feeling overflows; The happy days unclouded to their close; The sudden joys that out of darkness start As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart Like swallows singing down each […]...
26. On Wenlock Edge The Wood's In Trouble On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble; His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves; The gale, it plies the saplings double, And thick on Severn snow the leaves. ‘Twould blow like this through holt and hanger When Uricon the city stood; ‘Tis the old wind in the old anger, But then it threshed another wood. Then, […]...
27. It Nods and Curtseys and Recovers It nods and curtseys and recovers When the wind blows above, The nettle on the graves of lovers That hanged themselves for love. The nettle nods, the wind blows over, The man, he does not move, The lover of the grave, the lover That hanged himself for love....
28. Poems Done on a Late Night Car I. CHICKENS I am The Great White Way of the city: When you ask what is my desire, I answer: “Girls fresh as country wild flowers, With young faces tired of the cows and barns, Eager in their eyes as the dawn to find my mysteries, Slender supple girls with shapely legs, Lure in the […]...
29. Freedom Freedom, as every schoolboy knows, Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell; On every wind, indeed, that blows I hear her yell. She screams whenever monarchs meet, And parliaments as well, To bind the chains about her feet And toll her knell. And when the sovereign people cast The votes they cannot spell, Upon the pestilential blast […]...
30. To A Poet That Died Young Minstrel, what have you to do With this man that, after you, Sharing not your happy fate, Sat as England’s Laureate? Vainly, in these iron days, Strives the poet in your praise, Minstrel, by whose singing side Beauty walked, until you died. Still, though none should hark again, Drones the blue-fly in the pane, Thickly […]...
31. The Rain and the Wind The rain and the wind, the wind and the rain They are with us like a disease: They worry the heart, they work the brain, As they shoulder and clutch at the shrieking pane, And savage the helpless trees. What does it profit a man to know These tattered and tumbling skies A million stately […]...
32. A Spell before Winter After the red leaf and the gold have gone, Brought down by the wind, then by hammering rain Bruised and discolored, when October’s flame Goes blue to guttering in the cusp, this land Sinks deeper into silence, darker into shade. There is a knowledge in the look of things, The old hills hunch before the […]...
33. Over The Range Little bush maiden, wondering-eyed, Playing alone in the creek-bed dry, In the small green flat on every side Walled in by the Moonbi ranges high; Tell me the tale of your lonely life ‘Mid the great grey forests that know no change. “I never have left my home,” she said, “I have never been over […]...
34. Aspens All day and night, save winter, every weather, Above the inn, the smithy and the shop, The aspens at the cross-roads talk together Of rain, until their last leaves fall from the top. Out of the blacksmith’s cavern comes the ringing Of hammer, shoe and anvil; out of the inn The clink, the hum, the […]...
35. Grey Hairs These are ashes of treasures: Of hurt and loss. These are ashes in face of which Granite is dross. Dove, naked and brilliant, It has no mate. Solomon’s ashes Over vanity that’s great. Time’s menacing chalkmark, Not to be overthrown. Means God knocks at the door Once the house has burned down! Not choked yet […]...
36. Trashcan Lives the wind blows hard tonight And it’s a cold wind And I think about The boys on the row. I hope some of them have a bottle of Red. It’s when you’re on the row That you notice that Everything Is owned And that there are locks on Everything. This is the way a democracy […]...
37. Crematorium-return (to where the ashes of both my parents are strewn) I) Ok the pair of you lie still What’s disturbing me need pass No fretful hand over your peace This world’s vicissitudes are stale Fodder for you who feed the grass Some particles of your two dusts By moon’s wish accident or wind May have […]...
38. Aux Imagistes I think I have never been so exalted As I am now by you, O frost bitten blossoms, That are unfolding your wings From out the envious black branches. Bloom quickly and make much of the sunshine The twigs conspire against you Hear them! They hold you from behind You shall not take wing Except […]...
39. The Intruder My mother preferring the strange to the tame: Dove-note, bone marrow, deer dung, Frog’s belly distended with finny young, Leaf-mould wilderness, hare-bell, toadstool, Odd, small snakes loving through the leaves, Metallic beetles rambling over stones: all Wild and natural – flashed out her instinctive love, And quick, she Picked up the fluttering. bleeding bat the […]...
40. The Sun Sets in Molten Gold The sun sets in molten gold. The evening clouds form a jade disk. Where is he? Dense white mist envelops the willows. A sad flute plays “Falling Plum Blossoms.” How many Spring days are left now? This Feast of Lanterns should be joyful. The weather is calm and lovely. But who can tell if it […]...